Former central bank governor to become MNB supervisory board chairman

Former National Bank of Hungary (MNB) governor Zsigmond Járai has been nominated to serve as chairman of the MNB's supervisory board, CIG Pannonia Life Insurance Spokesman Gabor Missura told MTI.

Parliament is expected to elect the central bank supervisory board on Tuesday and its members will take their oaths the same day.

Járai, who is currently chairman of CIG Pannonia's supervisory board, was central bank governor between 2001-2007. Previously he served as finance minister in the first Orbán-government.

Missura noted that as central bank governor Járai disagreed with the idea of a supervisory board delegated by parties controlling the central bank.

The supervisory board was set up at the MNB when the 2001 central bank act was amended at the time of the Hungarian Socialist Party-controlled Medgyessy-government.

The supervisory board only has authority over the central bank's internal financial management and operation and has no say in how monetary policy is shaped. The mandate of the members of the supervisory board expire with the mandate of the members of parliament. The supervisory board has eight members, six of whom are delegated by the parliamentary parties, with the chairman nominated by the largest party in parliament. The national economy minister delegates one representative and one specialist into the supervisory board. (MTI – Econews)

Related articles

Last year, the EIB Group signed loans worth EUR 700 million with Hungary to promote SMEs, urban development and competitiveness. The financial support was aimed at export-oriented companies, education, urban development and telecommunication projects.

Strabag Property and Facility Services Zrt. remains the market-leading service provider with a market share of 2.2%, a study by Vienna-based international market research firm Interconnection Consulting has found, according to a press release sent by Strabag to the Budapest Business Journal on Monday.

Starting in February, Enterprise Hungary launches its Startup Campus V4 Global Tour, an opportunity for innovative companies from the Visegrád Four countries – Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia – to introduce themselves to investors and large business partners.

The producer prices index (PPI) was 3.9% higher in December 2017 than in the same month of the previous year. In 2017 as a whole, industrial producer prices were 3.3% higher than in 2016, according to a first release of data for December and the full year of 2017 from the Central Statistical Office (KSH).

Most of the tax changes introduced as of this year are in line with previous Hungarian taxation trends aimed at decreasing the burden on individuals and shifting the emphasis to consumption. Still, the overall tax burden remains fairly high compared regional peers.

GE Hungary, the local subsidiary of General Electric, has signed the EUR 793 million contract on the delivery of turbines for two new reactors at the Paks Nuclear Power Plant, according to reports in the Russian press cited by Hungarian news agency MTI Thursday.

The number of Hungarians working abroad is about 300,000, with most of them working in Austria. Compared to neighboring countries, this is a low number, Piroska Szalai, advisor at the Ministry of National Economy told daily Magyar Idők.

Doing their bit to counter the worrying decline in global bee populations, state-owned forestry companies in the north of Hungary and the south of Slovakia yesterday launched a two-year project to renew their beekeeping traditions, supported by HUF 340 million in European Union cross-border funding.

Starting from January 1, Tibor Loncsár has taken over the position of managing director at SAS Hungary, the local office of the multinational developer of analytics software, from Tibor Musza, who founded the office 25 years ago.

Public audiences around the world overwhelmingly agree that the news media should be unbiased in its coverage of political issues, according to a new report by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center based on a survey of 38 countries, including Hungary.